The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-10-04
DESPERATE coRT1NA FREE.
Eleven Years in Prison Without Trial
for Expediency's Sake.
From Tho Neic York World

| ,. from inc NetO orh " ora.
Cry OF MEXICo, Sept. 27.-The release
of Juan Cortina, after more than eleven
| years Of Imprisonment in the military prison
of Santiago Tlalelolco reviveS the story of
! the man'sromantc and picturesque career.
Intelligent public opinion here has always
condemned the policy of the Mexican gov
ernment in imprSoning him at all, and in
Vulnerable have been the indignant and con
| temptuous criticisms in consequence. FROM
President Diaz down, almost rybody
knew that Cortina was an offender not
against Mexico but of Texas that it was be-
| fore Texan not a Mexican tribunal that he
should have appeared and that it was not in a
Mexican but in United States prison. that
he should have expiated his crimes. Still
there was a loud and bitter cutlery against
Cortina along the Rio Grande, on the Texas
side of which Cortina was persistently cred
tied to Mexico, and when Diaz, after his
successful revolt against Lerdo de Texada,
III 1876, became President, he found it would
be better for him to accept the situation at
the American estimate, and, since the United
States authorities would not do so, arrest
the tumulhious Cortina himself. He issued
| orders accordingly and Cortina was soon
| lodged in the prison of Santiago, where he
has remained ever since, though latterly
some little freedom has been allowed him
| AlO was HtNtI DIOuSHb W Jildl DtCduSS, III
| fact, he had violated no laws of Mexico
He was held in obedience to an idea of in
ternational expediency. That was all.
| That Cortina was ruffian, murderer
and brute is not doubted by any one who
knows his history. That he was the guiding
| spirit of that vast cattle stealing organiza
ton which ravaged the Texas frontier
during the sixties and the early seventies
there is good reason to believe. But the
truth iC that (tortinR horn in TaraC
| far from Brownsville, where his mother
| lived all her life and where she owned an
estate OF some value. He was desperate
of brilliant attachments, and long and bloody
and cruel is the record attributed to him
Many army officers will recall him, fifteen
or twenty years ago, as he would ride into
Brownsville or Matamoras, nervous, mus
cular, little figure, magnificently attired in
the most picturesque style of'the Mexican
caballero, superbly mounted and bristling
with revolvers. He rejoiced in a lightning
pulp and a deadly aim, and the highest
ambition of the prudent tradesrnan in either
town was to shut up shop as soon as Cortina
| entered
| Decidedly it was in the interests of civ
| ilization that Cortina should be locked up.
| The only trouble was that the United States
and not the Mexican authorities were the
ones to do it, Relations, however, were
strained at the time Diaz did not feel Sc
cure of American sympathy, and he finally
decided, it is believed here by the advice of
Minister Foster, TO remove the firebrand and
restore good feeling il is only fair to say
that the United States authorities recip-
rocated in 1877 by Selling a lot of arms
| about to be crossed into Mexico for the
purpose of equipping a counter-revolution
against Diaz, organized by the deposed
President Lerdo, then living in New York
and of which Gen. Escobedo since pardoned
and reinstated, was to be the leader.
! All the same, however, Cortina was a
citizen of Texas, an offender against the
| laws of the United States, and should have
been dealt with by that government and
not the Mexican. Indeed, he was at one
! time during the war between the Northern
and Southern States in the military service
of the Union.
He is nearly 80 years old now, and much
enfeebled by his long imprisonment. 1t is
not thought he will do much if any harm
when he returns to his old haunts on the
| Rio Grande